 If you have chosen to or are considering embarking on an exciting journey of hackathon, this program is for you. Winning a hackathon isn't just about building a cool project, it's about solving real problems in innovative ways. Today, we will meet a past winner of Smart India Hackathon, Ammai, to get some insights on the problem statement number 1373 of SIH 2023, which is one stop solution for monitoring daily plant energy consumption, hygiene and packaging waste collection from consumers. So, Ammai, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, sir, for giving me this opportunity and I'm really grateful to advise or to show the pathway for the youngsters who are competing this 2023 hackathon. Right, thank you so much, Ammai, for that. And to begin with, let's know something about you. Please tell us something about you, what you are doing, I mean what you've been doing and then thereafter, your past experience of the hackathon, which you went on to been. Yes, sir. So, sir, basically myself, Ammai Amol, I am belonging from the Sangli district, Maharashtra. But I'm studying in Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, which is Asia's finest college for the chemical engineering. And from past five years, I'm working as a researcher there. So we are developing various prototypes, various new innovative products for the scaling in the market. So for the hackathon, in my first year, 2019, we were the first to participate in the hackathon. We cannot won this hackathon, we are just finalized finalists for this hackathon. But when we are coming back after the COVID-19 2022, the hackathon will announce and we get the problem statements and it is completely new to our research and resources. So we are just competing in this competition with these problem statements. And we won the 2020-22 hackathon competition. So right now, I am doing my own startup, which is called Riga Industries, which is completely related to the Smart Indi hackathon problem statements. So I am right now working because of the, my startup is starting because of the only SIH 2020-22 because this is the exactly key point where I get the kickstart of my startup. That's it. So that's very nice to know, Amai, that you were able to capitalize on the start that you got from Smart Indi hackathon. You were able to build upon that success and today you are on an entrepreneurial journey. That's wonderful and I hope all others are able to do that, what you have been able to. Great. So Amai, to talk about the problem statements of this year, the one that you've chosen, please tell us something about that. Why have you chosen that particular problem statement to discuss? I mean, is it close to your comfort zone or like you think you have expertise over that technically or otherwise? So tell us, why have you chosen this particular statement to discuss with us today? Yeah. Yes. Yes. I already told you, I am the founder of Riga Industries and I want to introduce what Riga Industries do right now. So we all know that in India there is the biggest problem about the liquid food preservation in the milk sector. So we all know that the daily requirement of the India is near about 65 lakh litre milk for the daily consumption. But India can produce only 15 lakh litre milk for the per day basis. Then what is the difference, which is 50 lakh litre milk is a completely non-organized and non-organic milk, which is produced from the some chemicals or this is a preserved milk is all where we are sailing in the whole country. So actually we are solving this problem. So what we are doing exactly, some milk pasteurization. We all know that milk is pasteurized using the thermal technologies, milk getting from the farmers and they were heated it till the 120 degrees centigrade, 140 degrees centigrade and suddenly it chilled out to the minus 4 degree, minus 10 degrees centigrade and it will be pasteurized, it will be completely killing the pythogens. But we are seeing only the killing the pythogens. We are not seeing they are also killing the all protein content, which are the nutrient content which is very useful for our body as well as in the calcium content is also killed on in this whole procedure. So this is a thermal technology procedure, it is not only preserve the milk, they are also killing the, which are the important factors in the milk, they are also killing these factors. So we are working on for these systems. So what we are doing, we develop one new phenomena named the cavitation. If you are asking for the any mechanical engineer, what cavitation is good or bad, it is definitely said it is good because it is damaging the machines. But if you are asking for the any chemical engineer, cavitation is a good concept, then it is damage sure that cavitation is one of the good concept. Because using this cavitation phenomena, we killing these pythogens and we can control this cavitation. So we can also save the nutritional factors as well as protein factor, fat factor, we are saving from this phenomena. So using this non-thermal approach, we are preserving the milk for the longer time. You boys all know that the milk is after the pasteurization milk can be preserved for the only for the three to four days. But using our phenomena, the milk can be preserved for the 21 days, which she deserves more sufficient time to travel the milk from the India anyway. So we are exactly working on these systems. And why I am choosing, I am right back to your question, why I am choosing this problem statement. If you are going through this problem statement, this is exactly this is a one stop solution of the monitoring, dairy plant, energy consumption, hygiene and packaging waste collection from the consumers. So this is the first part, which is in this one stop solution for the monitoring the dairy plant energy consumption. So this is exactly a factor. We all know that for the in the dairy, right now in the dairy sector, there is a per liter, there is three rupees are charging for the pasteurization and thermal technologies because it is a heavily energy consumption. And some of the biggest, I don't want to reveal their names, but some of the case there is are also using some chemical preservatives to preserve the milk in this milk. So it is a completely unhygiened system is right now rolling in the India. So this is the problem statement come up with the government of the animal husbandry, you can see. So we have to reduce this consumption of the energy using non-thermal ways, which we are already developed in the market. So for the using our approach, there is only 21 days of the shelf life. But if we can do for any packaging material for that system, right now the milk is only polythene, normal polythene packs are milk is distributed in all over India. But if we are come up with the new materials, which can be the preserve the milk, enhance the milk shelf life, then it will be very grateful for the milk sector. We also know that the right now the tetrapacks are coming in the market for the shelf life enhancement in the liquid foods. So we can also try this shell tetrapacks for the milk only. That's why I'm choosing this problem statement because this is exactly need for today's India generation. Certainly you established that you are the right person to be dealing with this form statement at first with your expertise and your domain knowledge basically. So now let's talk about it like how will you start to begin with, you know, you need to have a team, the team formation, the responsibility allocation and they're on, you know, other things like research and preparation and all that. So how do you start this? Let's begin with the team first. What kind of a team will you put up for this and how will you allocate responsibilities? Yes, exactly. So sir, exactly we are performing this exactly sector in the hardware sector. So we have to present there a one prototype model. So this prototype is very attractive and means you have to show them the exactly attractive prototype as well as we have to, this prototype is also controlled by softwares, not controlled by manual. So this is easier for the softwares means we can put only one push one button and those whole product is started. So this is not only saying this is behind that there is all software work. So we have to take one software knowledgeable person, otherwise software engineer from your colleges, you can get this one from the team because it is very useful for the today's presentations and today's generation because no one want to start the manually because in the manually there is a extra charges for the labor costing and all this. So we have to reduce this cost using the softwares using the technology, which is reduce the human efforts from the whole prototype. Second thing for you are going for the hardware thing. So we are pick up the some mechanical to mechanical engineers for that because our whole setup is in the SS still and there is a gravitational setup and there is a motor pump, all these things we have to join, we have to calculate these things. So we need to mechanical engineer for the setup building for concept and third, there is not only the task for the setup, we have to preserve the milk also. So we are also take that one food technologist from the college. So we can get some help from his technical approach for the how can we preserve, we have to check the nutritional analysis, we have to check the shelf life analysis from him. So we have to some distances and all these things. And third thing we are in our group, there is one girl named Akanksha, he is really good in the market survey means how the other solutions are not better than us, how the our solution is very good for this food for this problem statement. So this all team I consume and there is a one leader for the who already known for this exactly what we are solving and what we want to do for the source socially or for the our peoples. So exactly there is one leader who can build this team. So actually according to that I build my team and I went to the SH. Okay, so this is about team formation that you would you know kind of roughly suggest. Now what about the planning part, how would you start the entire you know preparation for this? Yeah, so on the our time, so we are right now on that time we are working on the sugarcane juice preservation using same concept, because we all know that sugarcane is degraded within 15 to 20 minutes. So on that certain time the SH, Smart and Decathlon stated the statements for the milk preservation using the non-thermal approach. So we are just think about that if we can preserve the sugarcane juice using the same phenomena, so that it's possible to we can preserve the milk with the same phenomena. So we just took the trial from the initial basis and we are just analyzing like how the we how we check the shelf life for the sugarcane juice, the same thing we are analyzed for the milk. But I already mentioned when we are taking the food technologies, we are we on that time we really don't know there is a one pasteurization test, which is alkyl phosphate test we have to check is it is the real milk is pasteurized or not for that we have to do these things. So the food technologies help in this sector. So initially we are doing on this all this experiment on the lab scale, we are going to near about one to near about one to two weeks we are really hard experiments and all these things because we are in the Mumbai and we don't get any raw milk from anywhere. So we have to take the raw milk from the panvel and we are coming from there and then we are start the treating and after that we are testing analyzing and finalizing the reports is all things are going in this two to three weeks. And afterwards two to three weeks we get the damn confidence on this system, we can preserve this milk using this system. So once we get the proven results from the lab scale, we are then we have get the very confidence for the prototype building. Because no one will be allowed you to build the prototype without confirmed lab reports because it is a wastage of money and then once our NABL certified results are came from the lab lab tested reports, then we are confirmed that we can build this prototype for us the system. So on the first time we are build the prototype for the 450 liter per hour setup as a prototype which is built in within one month before the SIH. We build this prototype with the help of the all team members and we really work hard for this prototype because on the engineering level you can't build one setup like an industrial setup in the mini sector. It is one of the toughest job for all the engineers because there is one mistake will be the born all wrong results. Then our setup will be built before the SIH finals near about before one to two weeks our setup is built out. Then on this setup we have to test trials in our college because we don't want to fail in the front of the judges in SIH. So we just tested the trials there are the lots of wrong things were happening in our setups. So we just corrected these all things in within a two weeks and just finalize our prototype and we just build this prototype for the SIH. And this is the final prototype which is builder from us was very attractive. Means it was really means anyone can learn from this prototype how we can preserve the milk using the non-thermal approach. Okay so what you're practically saying is that those evaluation parts those you know when judges and evaluators come and see when suggest you those are very crucial those are very very critical and they can you know kind of change the entire course of the thing. So and he also said it's very positive for the contestant also because sometimes you come up with something better something even more you know purposeful. So how should one tackle this particular phase when these changes are about to happen or are bound to happen? How to take this positively? So sir on the time we were means first day was very bad for our setup also means first day was bad for the purity because team evaluators are they are expecting from us is very different things rather than we are what we are prepared. So we have to work hard from the after the evaluation in the night we are very doing the various type of the whatever remaining literature we are also knowing about the scalability we are also taking for the how you will get the revenue from this setup. So they are preparing in these six days they are preparing in your entire zone which is entrepreneurship. How you can scalable this setup in the market and how you can sell these things in the market otherwise how you can go for the entrepreneurship things from this product exactly these things are they are doing they are not evaluating only you they are they are also teaching you how to go for the industry what is the difference between the lab scale and industrial scale. So they are all teaching from these things so we are just consuming this their things and just working on these things in the night and just showing them from the tomorrow morning yes we are ready with this product yes we can do this things solved using our prototype. So just this type of the things are getting us the motivation and from the second day whenever we are going for the answering answering the judges and the answers was getting the very confident to the judges also on that time we are getting also confidence yes we can do this prototype for the industrial sector. So this is the way how we can gain the confidence and build up for the second day don't think about the past days what happened yesterday just think about the what we can do for the next day this is the very important thing in the whole SHJ and stay positive for these six to seven days because each and every other teams each and every other judges all mentors are only you for the demotivating otherwise they are just thinking how you can break this model how you can break you and you can scaleable this prototype for the largest scale that's it right I mean thank you so much those are some very strong and very positive recommendations coming from you and I hope people will notice all of that and you know try and make use of whatever insights you have to give us thank you so much for joining us today and we wish you all the best in your venture and good luck thank you thank you so much thank you so much remember a hackathon is not just a competition it's a fantastic learning opportunity embrace the challenges learn from setbacks and save other journey best of luck and may your code compile flawlessly